William B. Ewald Oral History Interview –JFK #1, 7/15/1983 Administrative Information Creator: William B. Ewald Interviewer: Sheldon Stern Date of Interview: July 15, 1983 Place of Interview: The John F. Kennedy Library Length: 19 pages Biographical Note Ewald, author, consultant. Special assistant, White House Staff; assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, (1954 - 1961); assistant to Dwight D. Eisenhower (1961-1964), discusses the 1960 presidential campaign and Eisenhower’s view on the Kennedy administration, among other issues. Access Open. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed October 24, 1996, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. 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The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the Library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation William B. Ewald, recorded interview by Sheldon Stern, July 15, 1983, (page number), John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program. William B. Ewald Table of Contents Page Topic 1 Dwight D. Eisenhower’s views on John F. Kennedy [JFK] pre-1960 3 Kennedy-Nixon debates 5,9 Richard Nixon’s 1960 campaign strategies 7 The black vote in the 1960 presidential election 11 Eisenhower’s influence during the 1960 campaign 13 Eisenhower and JFK relationship during the Kennedy administration 15 Eisenhower’s reaction to the Cuban Missile and Berlin Crises 16 Eisenhower’s participation during the test ban treaty 17 Civil rights in the Kennedy administration 18 Eisenhower’s feelings toward the Johnson accession Oral History Interview with WILLIAM B. EWALD July 15, 1983 John F. Kennedy Library By Sheldon Stern For the John F. Kennedy Library STERN: Why don‟t we begin with, is there anything that you might have on Eisenhower‟s [Dwight D. Eisenhower] assessment of Kennedy [John F. Kennedy] before 1960. It was while Kennedy was still in the Senate particularly, say, in the last four years while it was becoming apparent that he was going to run for President. EWALD: Well, I think Eisenhower tended to look over the head, more or less, of all the possible nominees. I think he probably felt, coming into 1960, that the Democratic nominee would come out of the Senate. And generally speaking, he‟d worked with Lyndon Johnson [Lyndon B. Johnson] and had known him, and kind of looked toward the Senate establishment-type of politician more than John Kennedy… STERN: Mm-hmm. EWALD: …I think he saw Kennedy as kind of a, non-establishment figure, a man whom he did not know very personally. Certainly had not worked closely with Kennedy as a leader in the Senate, and therefore he was kind of out in the distance. I remember that in the summer of ‟57 Kennedy made a speech in Algeria. That was, I think, the only instance [-1-] that I have ever seen of Eisenhower‟s singling Kennedy out for any kind of a comment. And he did it in a cabinet meeting. He said he‟s made these comments about Algeria, about how they ought to be independent of France. He said, “That‟s fine. Everybody likes independence. We can all make brilliant speeches. But these things are rather difficult problems, and maybe somebody ought to make a speech to remind the senator that they‟re not so easy.” It was a kind of back of the hand thing. STERN: Mm-hmm. EWALD: After all, it was not till summer of ‟60 that you knew Kennedy would in fact be the nominee. And Lyndon Johnson was very powerful coming up there. And Symington [Stuart Symington, II], there were a lot of other people. And Symington, of course, and Eisenhower had known him for years and years going back to pre-Columbia University days. And so Kennedy was kind of on the outside. One other occasion, in November ‟54, Eisenhower made a speech in Boston to the National Council of Catholic Women in Symphony Hall. STERN: Mm-hmm. EWALD: And he made the speech there toward the middle of November, to help Saltonstall [Leverett Saltonstall] be re-elected in early November. Problem was he was making the speech after the election, but Saltonstall could go out and say “He‟s coming, he‟s coming” and that could help Saltonstall. So he agreed to make this speech to Catholic women. Now, at that time John Kennedy was in the hospital with his back operation, and I believe Eisenhower mentioned that we pray for his recovery, something like that. STERN: Mm-hmm. EWALD: It‟s a nice touch in that setting. One other thing. There was a photograph of Eisenhower shot signing a fishing bill, something like that. Kennedy, Saltonstall were there. STERN: That‟s right. EWALD: Kennedy-Saltonstall measure. STERN: Right. EWALD: And John Kennedy‟s standing over the head of Eisenhower looking like a young kid. I‟d put him at fifteen years [-2-] old, and it was only a few years before, of course, he became the nominee. But once you got into the campaign…. STERN: Okay. You read my next statement. The question was again after the campaign. Once Kennedy was nominated, there were a lot of accounts, for example, of the early reaction of the Nixon [Richard M. Nixon] camp to the acceptance speech in Los Angeles when he‟d get nervous… EWALD: Yeah. STERN: …ill at ease. As far as you know, is that accurate? The Nixon people thought that he could take him on in the debate because of that? Was that incident actually accurate as far as you know? EWALD: Yeah. I think if you go back to July and August, September, early September of ‟60, there was great euphoria in the Nixon camp, and they thought, this guy would never go anywhere, he‟s nervous, he‟s unsure, he‟s got enemies within his own party. His vice-presidential nominee is there only by virtue of having had his arm twisted. And their feeling was that after the election, Kennedy will lose and you‟d never be able even to find him in the United States Senate let alone on the floor, he‟d be so burned. And they really felt that Nixon had an overwhelming kind of advantage. And part of the advantage came, of course, from the fact that Nixon did have the great power of the federal apparatus at his disposal to get himself made president. And I don‟t mean buying votes or that kind of thing. But what I mean is that, for example, if you were going to decide, “What‟s our foreign policy going to be?” well, you‟d turn to the State Department people, at least the Republicans in the State Department. They would come up with position papers and all kinds of things. And I remember one, I guess maybe I mentioned it in the book, one meeting that was held where they had representatives from every department of the government meeting in some huge place. And these were the people who were going to bring you the position papers and be the research backup, all that kind of thing. It was a mob there and sixty, seventy, a hundred people, a large number. And they started cranking out position papers. They were going to put out one a week on major issues, and they pretty well did. They turned out these hundred-page papers and it was a big operation. They really thought this was going to be very effective. STERN: Right, right. EWALD: And he rode very high at that particular time, and, of [-3-] course, Jim Shepley [James R. Shepley] of the Time-Life organization was supposed to convert all of this grist into presidential or vice- presidential quotes for the campaign trail. And so the wheels were rolling, and they started out with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of output. STERN: Plus, of course, Kennedy and Johnson were stuck in that long session of Congress…. EWALD: That was the other thing. And Nixon was able to be out campaigning. That‟s right. And the long session didn‟t help. STERN: Yeah, not at all. You tend, in your book, to concur with Teddy White‟s [Theodore H. White] assessment that the first debate was quote “disaster” unquote for Nixon.